Monday, July 25, 2011

When is a spending cut not a spending cut

If you're looking for just 1 answer, you haven't been paying attention to our Congress lately.

Scenario 1:

For years Republicans have bitterly resented the fact that cutting the rate of growth has been characterized by Democrats as a spending cut. If you propose to increase spending on program A by $10million instead of $20million, you've SLASHED their budget, blah blah blah. Well, in the interest of calling a hypocrite a hypocrite, you guys are all a bunch of hypocrites!

Right now, Republicans are trying to get the deficits trimmed. They're throwing out numbers like $1 trillion in deficit reduction, 2.4 trillion, even 4 trillion was a number out there last week. Turns out, those who have complained about the accounting shenanigans in the past are using the very same shenanigans. If it was B/S for the Dems to use it against you, it's B/S for you to use it to sell us that you're taking our debt issues seriously. MOST of the proposed $2.7 trillion cut over 10 years comes from reductions to the rate of growth of government spending. It does nothing about the currently bloated spending levels. It does nothing to encourage cost-saving within the bureaucracy.

Scenario 2: Senator Harry Reid came out today with a whopping $2.7 trillion in budget cuts. Most of which has been classified as pure sham. When $1.2 trillion is already marked for cuts, I really don't think you should trumpet it as part of your package.

Smoke and mirrors and word games. It's no wonder that Americans are fed up with Washington. Now, if only the voting public could take this pledge: